What's big, purple, and doesn't sing annoying Barney songs?

The answer? My stomach.

I would have done a full frontal view, but no one needs to see something that gross. This is from just one injection site. My stomach and love handles are full of these little lovelies. It looks like I'm involved in competitive pregnant lady boxing. We started injections twice a day with heparin about a month and a half ago. I say "we" because Steve does the majority of them. I only do it if he forgot or didn't have time to, which can result in interesting experiences. I try not to watch when either of us do it. One time I didn't insert the needle far enough and had a nice heparin bubble under my skin for the rest of the day. Needless to say, even if I wanted cutesy naked belly maternity pictures (which I don't), I'd be out of luck.

Our doctor switched over our prescription, obviously, to this current drug so we could actually afford it. It's 7% the cost of Lovenox and hopefully effective enough to do the job. I am grateful for it, but still nervous all the same. But I'd probably be more nervous without it, so we're trucking forward. I'm glad I only have to do these puppies while I'm pregnant!

Chocolate Cravings

I was craving french silk pie the other day, but didn't want to eat raw eggs while pregnant so I made a recipe up. And it was good! Or so my minions tell me.

French Silk Pie

Crust

20 Oreo cookies, crushed

1/4 cup butter, softened

Mix and place in a greased 9 inch pie plate. Bake at 350 for 5-7 minutes. Cool.

Filling

1.5 cups heavy cream

1.5 (12 oz) package of milk chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli's- quality counts)

1.5 teaspoon of vanilla

1/8 teaspoon of salt

Combine the above in a double boiler and melt.

When it's sufficiently smooth, add some of the hot chocolate filling to 3 beaten eggs gradually, then add to the rest of the chocolate sauce. Mix well and heat through enough to ensure eggs are cooked. Add to crust and put in refrigerator to cool.

When cool, mix 1 cup of heavy cream with 1/4 cup of sugar and beat until stiff peaks form. Top off pie and enjoy! Keep refrigerated.

Bye Grandma

Before Grandma left, we had a little firework faux New Year's Eve action since New Year's was actually on Saturday and we had to head to church and the airport in the morning. I think this is the first year we set off our own fireworks. It was nice to do it all in the comfort of our own backyard.



The kids ended up watching most of them while swinging on the playset. It took a while to get through them all! Grandma bought a huge pack of them!

In the morning I was able to snap a few pictures of Grandma and the kids before we all went our separate ways. We loved having her with us this Christmas!

All Talk

I'm not political. Part of the reason for this is I can't even vote, but I may have also inherited my mother's apathy about the political process. Can one person really make a difference in Washington and the state of our country right now? I've yet to see a political leader that really inspires me and that I feel I can support. But I really want Obama out. That became very clear to me when he started with the idea that you can spend your way out of a recession. His more recent move of shutting down the Keystone oil pipeline solidified my dislike for him even more. It might be good for Canada to diversify their clientele when it comes to oil exportation so that they aren't at the mercy of what USA is willing to pay, but just the thought of all those potential jobs going to waste and China snapping up the opportunity of Canadian oil kind of makes me sick. The man just reeks of arrogance. Didn't like him before he was voted in and don't like him now.

It's been interesting to watch some Mormon frontrunners for the GOP nomination. Even more interesting when Romney embraced his faith and Huntsman kind of downplayed it and the aftermath of it all. My support of politicians is based by and large by a gut feeling I have about the person. Romney strikes me as awkward and stiff, but with a good heart. I don't feel like his life has been a facade of "what do I need to do to climb the ladder?" His commitment to his wife and faith, his ability to understand how to run businesses successfully, and the fact that he is not a career politician really make me like him. At least he has spent some time in the real world and has a grip on how our economy works.

So when he was campaigning through South Carolina and a bunch of people from our ward were getting together to support one of his stump speeches, we thought it would be fun to tag along. It was an interesting experience and I'm glad we went. We were pretty close to the front and stood out amongst the crowd in our group. I don't think people were very used to seeing so many kids at a political rally. Even Mitt commented on it when he first came out. Several of our friends got their pictures in multiple news stories, especially one child in particular that was holding a "Go Mitt! Mormons Rock!" sign. Our kids were happier to blend into the background.

The photographers going crazy for the kids.


When the speech was over and it was photo op time, Mitt was reaching down to all our kids to take pictures with them. He started to pick up Nadia and she totally dissed him. He put her down and muttered "she doesn't want me" and moved on to the next kid. It'll make for a good story if he does wind up being president.

I should have gone for the photo op instead of our kids. Oh well.
Nadia at least gave Mitt's music the thumb's up.


You can see our kidlets on our shoulders if you go right from the reporter's nose. Yes, we are famous now.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7394789n&tag=mncol%3Blst%3B2

Afterwards we went out for ice cream. Our reward to the kids for patiently getting through the whole experience. Sadly Mitt didn't win in SC, but we're hoping he'll eventually take the GOP nomination with or without the South's nod of approval.